


In the Chevrolet Built for Two

by Wetbones



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Age Difference, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, No Underage Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wetbones/pseuds/Wetbones
Summary: In an unknown city, a familiar person could become a lifeboat.How Boruto spent a lot of his time sitting inside Sasuke Uchiha’s car.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Boruto
Comments: 28
Kudos: 65





	1. Part I

_Part I_

* * *

It was impossible to say if it was proper to Tokyo or all faceless cities but they had this unique power, they could disorient someone like nothing else. Metropolises were often compared to jungles. Boruto found the comparison dull. 

To him, they were closer to an archipelago of floating islands. Pushed by the sea current, the chunks of land could only drift, each distinctly separated from the other. 

Every day felt like a long Sunday. The thrill of moving to somewhere new dissipated pretty quickly after the first weeks.

June just ended. His room was still naked. Boruto didn’t know how to decorate the walls. In his room, back home, he had plastered pictures and movie posters on them. Here, it seemed a waste of time. This apartment was a temporary place only. It wasn’t meant to be called home. 

It was his first time in the city or rather his first time remembering it. He came here once when he was still very small. His mother was pregnant with Himawari. His grandfather had fallen suddenly sick and had to travel to Tokyo to meet better specialists. According to his mother, they spent the majority of their short time between the medical clinic and the hotel room. They saw nothing of the city. She also said Boruto would stand at the window, only to watch the traffic. His face would twist and he would cry each time she would close the curtains and try to tuck him into bed. Growing up, his mind had crafted a false memory of that trail of colorful cars and their intense headlights. 

Boruto developed a dislike for the city, early on. He found it bleak and too often crowded. Noisy also. He never minded the noise usually, he even favored it to silence. But here at night, there was a lot of strange noises because of the small bar, beside his building. You had the drunk people laughing loud like crows at 3 a.m. The one who fought and cursed. Someone weeping too once. They all woke Boruto up. 

The jam-packed subway had been fun the two first times, the same way a labyrinth would, then he had to walk quickly like the rest of the people. There was no time anymore to quench his curiosity and others had the tendency to glare when he slowed down. Soon, he became like them and glared too. 

His father called sometimes. He would talk with him first then his mother and last, Himawari. They would tell of their days, one after the other, even if these days were no different from yesterday. 

College was not very different from high school in some ways.

Classes were fuller. There was a degree of anonymity surrounding the students. They were nothing but names next to numbers within long lists. Teachers bothered less with them. Boruto took them for nice and carefree at first, but it was simply that they were invested in nothing else but their lessons. If one of them came to disappear, he suspected they wouldn’t even notice the absence until the administration informed them. 

He still met new people and even made some friends throughout the months. Sometimes, on Fridays, Boruto would go out with them after sunset, and would only come back in the small hours of the morning, his head dizzy.

And yet that lonely feeling wouldn’t wash off, stuck on him. Perhaps, there was something in the air or buried deep in the concrete of the city, made to leave him bereft.

Before Boruto left his hometown, his father had given him a number. 

Call Sasuke if there is anything urgent, he had said. 

Sasuke. His presence was an eclectic occurrence in their life.

Nothing but a distant person among the people Boruto knew. Someone rarely here during big dinners or birthdays. He would come alone, always. Was he friends with the other friends? They all shared a tight camaraderie except with him. 

Boruto never met him during his childhood, yet everyone called him his father’s best friend. He had heard the name before, uttered here and there, but had never seen the face. Only in old pictures that were unfaithful to reality. 

Then when he was thirteen, Sasuke showed up for the first time, driving all the way from Tokyo to visit. He was wearing a dark suit that day. Boruto remembered distinctly that tall figure crossing their door. There was something austere about it. Had a smile ever brushed that face? Hard to say. 

How long it had been since he and his father last saw each other? Boruto asked his mother while they were in the kitchen. She had replied, a while, with a hushed voice. It didn’t help much. _A while_ could mean two months as much it could mean ten years. There may be some secret here. Boruto couldn’t imagine ditching a best friend for _a while_.

He didn’t know a lot about Sasuke’s life. 

He knew he worked and lived in Tokyo, that he was in his late thirties, and grew up with Boruto’s father. Yet there was no trace of his family in their town. They all moved out, he once learned. That was the limit of his knowledge about him. 

Sasuke didn’t talk with them, as if he and Himawari didn’t exist. No smiles or courtesies. A “Hello” when he arrived. A “Goodbye” when he left. Sometimes, nothing but a simple motion of the head. 

As if Boruto was nothing but another chair inside a friend’s house, his presence was not worthy of his time, his eyes never turned toward him. Not a gaze. Not a word. Not even an ear. Nothing.

But Sasuke was a family friend, so they had to put up with his presence. Boruto often wondered if he even knew their names, after all these years. Himawari didn’t believe it to be the case.

Three months ago, the day Boruto arrived in Tokyo, Sasuke Uchiha had been waiting for him, leaning against his Chevrolet Corvette, on the parking of the Tokyo Station. Boruto felt intimidated as if he met that man for the first time. 

He would have preferred to take a cab. He didn’t need a guardian, especially him. But his father had said, too late.

Sasuke didn’t ask if the travel was good and if he did, Boruto would have answered, no, because sitting three hours straight never felt good. 

Boruto asked, “What year?” while pointing at the black coupe because he never dared to ask before. 

“C2,” Sasuke had replied. “1966.”

“That’s pretty old.”

“That’s the point.”

He had this manner of speaking, always so laconic.

They might have exchanged other words but Boruto couldn’t remember them. 

Then Sasuke dropped him in front of a building, smaller than what Boruto expected. He had only seen pictures online. Its height had been oddly reassuring. In the car, as Sasuke drove, Boruto had watched the city and how everything looked too tall here. 

“Do you need to buy furniture?” Sasuke said through the rolled-down window after Boruto left the car. 

“The place is already furnished.”

“Do you need anything?”

A bicycle and maybe a pan, that was what Boruto should have answered. 

“No, I’m fine,” he had said, his luggage next to him. “My landlord should be here soon. I will manage. Thanks for the ride, Sasuke-San.”

Sasuke treated the word “No” for what it is, a clear refusal. There were no ‘Are you sure?’ or ‘I insist. Let me help further’.

“No problem,” Sasuke said before leaving without sparing another glance. 

Urgent. That was the word his father used. It could be defined as: calling for immediate attention. 

Could boredom be considered a matter _calling for immediate attention_ or should death be involved?

No matter the answer to this question, Boruto still sent this short message a Sunday morning,

_Hello_

He received an answer the hour after. 

_Who is it?_

Sitting on his couch, Boruto stared at his phone screen for a long time. Something in him bristled. He had called Sasuke and spoke with him, the moment he left the train. Somehow he had hoped for something foolish, to be remembered.

_Wrong number. Sorry._

That was what he replied. Sasuke didn’t answer anymore like expected. Quickly, Boruto deleted his number and this short conversation from his phone. It was all stupid. 

* * *

Himawari phoned the next week at daybreak.

“Do you like, eat McDonald’s every day?” she questioned after Boruto told her what he was having for dinner.

He laughed.

“Yeah, and?”

“Gross.”

At sixteen, Himawari was only two years younger than him. They grew up together or rather at the same time. Most of what he lived, she lived it too, not long after.

“Sasuke-San visited, yesterday.” 

Boruto didn’t stop eating. He dipped his fries in ketchup.

“Really?” he said with a methodical disinterest.

Always pretend not to care, that was his motto. This, she didn’t live it. One of Boruto’s exceptions. He hoped for her sake, she never would.

“Yes. Dad even made him stay for the night.”

Sasuke never slept over when Boruto was there. It was a strange thing to imagine him inside the house at night when everyone was sleeping. 

“They put him in your room.”

“My room?”

“Yes. It was weird. For an instant, I heard noises in the morning and I truly thought it was you but—It was just him.”

Boruto frowned. Did he sleep in his bed? he thought. Did he use his pillow too? Looked under the mattress?

“Well, good to know they already turned my room into the guest room.”

“Don’t be like that,” Himawari said. 

“It’s still my room, last time I checked. Maybe I don’t want a stranger to sleep in it.”

“But he is not a stranger.”

Boruto didn’t answer. 

The silence at the end of the line stretched then he heard a sigh. 

“Does it bother you that much?”

“Forget it. So tell me how is school?”

“School is fine,” she answered.

They talked a bit more then Boruto hung up. He went to bed soon after. Sleep was slow to arrive. 

Somehow Boruto had more glimpses of Sasuke when he’d lived miles away from him than now. 

* * *

Summer arrived. Boruto spent his break at home with his family. He wouldn’t have survived the intense heat of July and August, roasting alone inside his apartment. Far from the city, he would have wanted this idle period to last forever. He always had a taste for the boredom of summer. 

A day before his return to Tokyo, while Boruto was packing his things, his father had joined him in his room to give him a task.

“I bought this for Sasuke during vacation. Can you give it to him?” 

Earlier this month, his parents traveled through Lombardy and Romagna.

Boruto didn’t even ask what was inside. With a nod, he took the slim bag and dropped it among his clothes. “Sure,” he answered.

If he had to guess, judging by the weight, it was a glass bottle, probably of wine.

The gift stayed inside his suitcase until the second week of September. Classes were about to start soon again when finally Boruto took out a little scrap from his wallet. 

While speaking on his phone with his father the day before, Naruto had asked about the gift. Boruto had been unable to find an excuse. 

“What are you waiting for?” He had said. “Did you forget?”.

“Sorry dad,” Boruto had replied. “I did.”

He was a liar, time and again. The succession of numbers was not unfamiliar.

_Hello. When and where can I drop the wine?_

_It’s Boruto Uzumaki, by the way._

The answer didn’t take long to arrive.

_I finish work at 7 pm. Thank you._

An address followed, probably of an office, in the Marunouchi district. 

It was five past seven when Boruto reached his destination on his bicycle. The building was dark and tall, all made of glass.

A financial firm? This is where Sasuke works, Boruto thought as he spotted Sasuke, standing in front of it, wearing one of his suits. Sasuke fitted more here, in this busy decor, full of clean-cut figures than anywhere else.

He was not alone. His back to him, he didn’t peek in Boruto’s direction and yet Boruto knew somehow he took notice of his presence. The man with him didn’t stop speaking. He had a cigarette between his fingers and with the small wind, the smoke tingled Boruto’s nose. 

Boruto pursed his lips and waited on his bike, a foot planted on the ground to steady him. He didn’t say anything, even if he was being ignored by both. In their eyes, he was probably not much, only a boy. Nothing worthy to look at. 

Then the coworker left and finally Sasuke turned. His gaze slid slowly on Boruto. Without a word like a courier, Boruto opened his backpack to hand him the bag, all wrinkled. When his father gave it to him, it was a pretty bag, all smooth with silk paper inside. It didn’t look like a gift anymore or a pretty shitty one.

“I hope you’ll like it.”

The street was busy but Sasuke took his time to take the red box from the bag and open it. Shouldn’t he do this at home? 

Boruto was right, inside there was a bottle made of dark glass but the shape was odd, too short and round, like a vial. 

“As a matter of fact, it’s not wine,” Sasuke said. “You were wrong.”

There was a tiny smile playing across his lips. Boruto found it condescending. 

“Hm?”

“Your text said it was wine but—” he marked a pause to turn the bottle in his hand and read out loud. “ _Aceto Balsamico_ , from the city of Modena. Twenty-five years old.”

And he didn’t sound surprised. His father might have told him.

“So, you like to cook?” Boruto asked.

He adjusted the straps of his backpack.

“Not really,” Sasuke answered.

“Well, you can still pretend it’s wine but I’m not sure it’s good for your stomach though.”

Sasuke did not smile and Boruto would have to ask his father, the next time they talk, why he thought gifting someone old vinegar was a good idea. Maybe there was some joke between the two he missed.

“Anyway, I have to go. Take care,” Boruto said.

He looked left to check the path and see if any bicycle was coming his way. 

“By the way, Boruto,” Sasuke said. 

A bike passed by quickly. Boruto should have left after this one.

“Yeah?”

One of his feet was back on the ground, impatient. 

“Why did you send me a message?” 

Boruto stopped looking left, rigid suddenly. Sasuke unlocked his phone and showed him simply the screen. Boruto glanced at it and recognized the messages from months ago, included in the conversation between them and then under them, the messages he sent today. He swallowed. The only proof needed. His name, he sent himself, _Boruto Uzumaki_ , was there to expose him. 

Boruto didn’t look toward Sasuke. His face burned. He stayed silent. No words would come to him. He wished to be ignored again. It was better when Sasuke didn’t speak to him. He had this power of making him feel small. Not in height, but as a person, and it was already too late for his self to grow. He could hardly stand it.

“Was anything wrong?” Sasuke asked. 

“No.”

“No?”

“I was just bored.”

“I see.”

“And then I changed my mind. That’s it.”

Carefully, Sasuke slid his phone in his pocket, his lips set in a straight line.

“Hm. So when you’re bored, you sent messages just like that to others before sending, W _rong Number_? Is it some kind of prank?”

Boruto found his voice hostile and cold, everything but joking. He felt a rage rising in him, and he couldn’t tell if it was directed to himself or Sasuke. He looked directly into the calm black eyes, the one he couldn’t bear to look at usually. 

“You don’t have any family in Tokyo, Sasuke-San, am I right?”

A short silence followed, and then flatly, 

“No.”

And Boruto wanted to ask Sasuke how long would it still take before he stop feeling like shit but it was not a question to ask, and especially not to someone like him, unfair and eager to pick him apart.

“I see. Well, see you around.”

There were no other bikes to stop Boruto this time. He pedaled and didn’t look back. 

* * *

Sasuke called three days after. Boruto didn’t answer him. If he called twice maybe Boruto would have answered. Maybe.

Twice meant important.

But curiosity got the best of him, so when three days passed because Boruto believed in the symmetry of things, he called back.

And the number was still a number. This time, he refused to give it a name and include it in his contact list. 

“So?” Boruto said.

“So,” Sasuke replied.

Simply, Sasuke proposed a ride. 

“Where?” Boruto asked. 

“You’ll see.”

He was glad Sasuke was the one to decide because if asked, Boruto wouldn’t know where to go.

Four hours later, his wristwatch showed nine and Boruto was waiting in front of the building, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. It was night and the air was getting chilly, the first reminder of autumn. Since yesterday, the street lamp stopped working, making the night look blacker. 

It didn’t take very long for Sasuke to arrive with his Corvette, across the street. 

The inside of the car smelled like leather and faintly his cologne that wore off during the day. Outside of work, Sasuke was different. He was dressed more casually with a grey jumper and dark pants. 

Boruto believed we could tell a lot by observing people driving. Some were nervous even after years on the road, always on their guard lifting their chin and straightening their back. Their hands would be crisped around the wheel and their drive was unpleasant and tense. But Sasuke sped smoothly between cars, the braking never abrupt and jerky. 

“You drive well.”

Sasuke didn’t look at him, his eyes stayed focused on the road.

“Thank you.”

“Few people keep driving manual,” Boruto noted.

“Yeah,” Sasuke answered, detached. “A shame.”

“A friend tried to teach me once but it was a bit annoying, not gonna lie. My license only applies for automatic anyway.”

Sasuke made no comments. He glanced in the rearview mirror and Boruto couldn’t say if he heard him. 

“Are you widowed?”

His question took a smile from Sasuke. It was a rare sight. He peeked at Boruto. 

“Did Naruto tell you that?”

“No.”

“Then why would I be widowed?”

“I mean, you’re my father’s age. How come you’re not married?”

Sasuke shrugged one of his shoulders. 

“I could be divorced.”

“You could, I guess.”

His reaction made Boruto feel like he was a silly kid being laughed at and maybe that was all he was, a silly kid who yearned for too much. 

Yes, sometimes he imaged Sasuke widowed, choosing to be lonely by hommage to a late wife who died in tragic ways. He never heard of any girlfriend. Sasuke never brought anyone with him like other friends of his parents did. 

He is a secretive person, admitted his father once to defend the silence surrounding him. 

“Well, are you?” 

“No.”

Boruto couldn’t tell if he was saying “no” to the widowed or divorced bit, probably to both.

“You have a lot of imagination, Boruto,” Sasuke said finally.

Boruto ran a hand through his hair and stared out his window.

“Yeah, I guess.”

They stopped at a traffic light. The radio got turned on. Boruto settled back in the leather seat. Sasuke looked strange, in this light. His red gaze focused ahead seemed infinite. Stark shadows were craved deeper on his face and neck. Something about it reminded Boruto of those sculptures made of stone that you could find inside parks and museums. 

“Tokyo, it’s prettier at night,” he said.

When it’s all red, he thought. 

The light turned green. Boruto looked away. 

“Where are we going, by the way?”

Nowhere. That was the answer. Sasuke kept driving around the city to show him places. They didn’t leave the car at all and went from neighborhood to neighborhood. That long bridge with all the colors present, that was what Boruto remembered the most. This city seemed even brighter at night. The big digital screens and neons only replaced the sunlight. 

And Boruto waited for each light to turn red because it would mean more instants between them and because at the red light, sometimes Sasuke would take off his eyes from the road. His gaze would silently cross his, his hands resting on the steering wheel. 

“When you’re bored again. Come and find me,” Sasuke told him as Boruto stepped out of the car.

The engine stayed on. 

His proposition seemed like a bargain. A faint murmur in Boruto’s mind. Trade carefully, it said. 

“Did my father ask you to do this?”

“No.”

For a long moment, they looked at each other, Boruto outside in the street, Sasuke inside the car. 

“I’m not a kid. I don’t need to be taken care of, you know.”

“I know.”

Boruto closed the car door cautiously. 

“Thank you for tonight,” he said with a wave of the hand and a smile before leaving. 

* * *

He met Shikadai during the first week of class, six months ago. He thought his name was stupid. 

“ _Boruto._ What kind of name is that? Is your father named hammer or thunder?” That was the first thing Shikadai told him. 

“Ask my parents. They’re the one who gave it to me,” Boruto had answered with a laugh. 

They rode the same subway home almost every day which gave them all the time to talk. Shikadai had piercings in both ears and intelligent eyes. 

Boruto found in him and his easy-going attitude, a kindred spirit. If all people he met here were like Shikadai then it wouldn’t suck as much. He could get used to it.

Shikadai didn’t live in Tokyo but in the suburbs, only a dozen minutes away. He had to take a commuter train to get home from Shinjuku station and had a place for him alone, a one-room apartment with the kitchen side larger than the rest. Cheaper, he said.

One day, even if they didn’t know each other for too long, he’d suddenly told Boruto “Don’t get off,” as the subway stopped at Boruto’s station, then, “You wanna come over?”. 

Everything felt that easy with him. Maybe that was what a friend was, someone in this world placed on the same wavelength as yours. 

Most Friday nights, they would buy a pack of beer and play video games together, splayed on Shikadai’s sofa. A little before eleven, sometimes, if they had some energy left, their feet would take them to this nightclub that played mostly techno. Both were not twenty yet. 

Shikadai would hand him a fake ID. Or rather it was a real ID from a friend who didn’t need it at the moment. It was always a different one.

Boruto never asked where he got them and what friend would be willing to give away his ID for the day.

He would try to hide half of the picture with his thumb each time. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, depending on the bouncer. 

Two guys and one girl, friends of Shikadai joined them in the waiting line. One of them was his cousin from what Boruto gathered. 

Inside, Shikadai disappeared, the two other boys with him. Boruto didn’t go after them.

He didn’t particularly like to dance, especially alone and after reflection, he didn’t like the line up that much either, tonight or the other nights. 

So he stayed on his seat, picking up ice cubes from his empty glass and chewing on them. 

“It’s bad for your teeth, Scarface,” the girl said sitting next to him. 

“I know.”

“Can I have one?”

No one asked him to share his ice cubes before. Boruto let a square cube slid from the glass directly to her palm, stretched out.

Yodo. That was her name, Boruto remembered her vaguely. She was among the friends of Shikadai. 

She had pink glitters and little rhinestones smeared all around her eyes. Boruto’s gaze lowered. Her top was short and revealed her firm stomach and the line of her hips. The loud bass drums throbbed in his ears and inside his body. 

She frowned suddenly and brought her hand to her forehead. She wore a few rings. Her nail polish was a black red.

“Fuck. I have a brain freeze.”

After a few seconds, Boruto told her: “I like it.”

She didn’t understand and looked at him. Her lips were still shining from the ice cube. 

He rubbed his eyelid with his finger. With the music playing loud, she had to lean very close to him to hear him. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Her perfume followed her, acidulous like grapefruits. 

“My makeup?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

She closed her eyes for a moment to allow him to have a better look. Her hand was still on his shoulder. The light changed. It was too dark now and Boruto couldn’t truly see anymore but he still said with a smile:

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

Later, when all the ice cubes had melted between them, she closed her eyes shut again, silent, and Boruto didn’t stare long before he leaned to kiss her. He ended up with glitters on his palm and face. She laughed a bit and her mouth was cold like his. 

Throughout the night, he watched the rhinestones fell from her face, one by one. 

* * *

The Monday, Boruto called Sasuke in the morning.

“But I’m not really bored,” he admitted, this time.

Because it was always better, to be honest. 

“Okay,” Sasuke answered. “Join me after work.”

Sasuke finished at half-past seven. Just after class, Boruto took the subway to get there. He convinced himself that he wasn’t anxious. To distract him, his attention stayed fixated on the transit map. He was still trying to memorize it. He managed to be twenty minutes late.

At this hour, only a few people remained in front of the company building. Sasuke wasn’t among them. His heart jolted. Of course, he left already, Boruto thought. His mercy had its limit. 

From across the street, Boruto stared at each of the people, twice to be sure.

Then he saw it, the old car poised on the sideways and behind the windscreen, this face which looked like no other faces. 

“I’m late. Sorry,” Boruto blurted, out of breath as he opened the door. “I couldn’t leave my class earlier.”

“It’s fine.”

The key was inserted and Sasuke put the car in gear. The engine grumbled.

“I thought you were gone.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Boruto grinned and buckled his seatbelt. Sasuke was already looking elsewhere. 

“No, indeed.”

The ride was silent. Sasuke drove, and the wind burst through, ruffling his dark hair each time he sped. Boruto shuddered. He rolled his window up. 

There were questions Boruto wanted to ask. He wished to know all about him. 

He could have asked his father — he thought of doing it a few times— but it would mean he cared and he was not supposed to care. His curiosity would have exposed him. 

_What’s your favorite color?_

_Are all your suits black?_

_Where were you when I was a kid?_

_Do you like tennis?_

_Do you like men? What about women?_

“Why are you doing this, Sasuke-san?” 

That was what he asked. 

“You’re my father’s friend, not mine.”

Sasuke frowned. A thin wrinkle formed between his brows. Boruto almost regretted his words. Maybe they weren’t supposed to talk about this because it would break some tacit contract between them. He expected Sasuke to tell him coldly: ‘Why do you ask?’

Sasuke waited. Perhaps four or five seconds passed, then he admitted:

“I’m not sure.”

His answer sounded honest, so Boruto didn’t press him further.

He couldn’t say if it was a good thing. Sasuke didn’t seem the kind to be fiddle about anything. 

They went to this place to eat. It was not exactly a restaurant, more a bar but they served snacks. 

Boruto picked out the place, a classmate told him about it. It looked shabbier than what he envisioned with old wallpaper and sad dim lights but at least it wasn’t empty. Sasuke didn’t say if he liked it. He didn’t seem to care very much. 

Boruto wondered what they looked like from the outside. Did they look like friends? No, probably not. Boruto didn’t meet many friends mismatched like them. Maybe they thought Sasuke was an uncle even if they looked nothing alike. Or maybe they saw them simply for what they are, two persons who happened to be bonded by someone else, “son of” and “friend of”. 

A waiter came to their table, Boruto had to change his order twice. He asked other questions and Sasuke answered them with short sentences. 

That was how Boruto learned that Sasuke landed in Tokyo at eighteen to study.

From his childhood friends, his father was apparently the only one who would come visit him. He barely had money but he would still take his scrappy car that could break at any given moment and drive hours to spend a day or two with Sasuke.

Boruto liked the way he talked about his father, the words he used, and the warmth in his voice.

“You know when I was younger, I dreamt of being like you,” Boruto let out, picking at his food. 

“Why?”

“Well, great car. Great watch. Great clothes.”

For a thirteen old boy in awe, there was nothing more impressive. He was the path to success. He seemed to be someone who knew exactly what kind of person he was, who knew his own wants. There should be no doubts in his mind. That was what he envied the most about Sasuke, this strong sense he seemed to have of himself.   
  
Boruto had imagined himself wearing his clothes, wearing his watch, driving his car, speaking like him to pull everyone into his orbit the same way Sasuke did so well. 

And perhaps because he was older, Boruto liked him a bit better. It was inescapable. 

“And what changed?” Sasuke asked simply.

His jacket was folded behind on the back of his chair, leaving him with his white shirt and sleeves-rolled-up. He had finished eating. 

Someone else could have been flattered by this ego stroke but with him, it didn’t seem to be the case. He stayed unimpressed. 

Boruto shrugged his shoulders. 

“I grew up probably. I know it won’t happen. You’re you and I’m me.”

He paused and turned his gaze to the outside. His eyes wandered to the other people, in the street. It was easier to look at them. 

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. It’s stupid.”

Pathetic dreams, they were, he wanted to say. 

“I’m glad, Boruto,” Sasuke said and his voice is warm. 

“Glad for what?”

“That you stayed your own person, after all.”

Boruto met his gaze. His ears burned but an unknown bluntness pushed him to ask: 

“Why does it matter for you anyway? Why would you be glad?”

Sasuke didn’t answer his question and honestly, Boruto didn’t expect him to. Instead, he said: 

“It’s always ‘Why’ with you, isn’t it?” 

It made Boruto laugh. He drunk a bit of water but his thirst was still not slaked. His throat stayed dry. 

* * *

As he spent another evening at Shikadai’s home, it dawned on Boruto that he never returned the invitation.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want him to come over to his apartment, it was that he didn’t want himself there. And Shikadai didn’t particularly seem to care. 

They had brought spicy instant noodles after class from the supermarket as snacks. 

Shikadai put the first cup in the microwave and it was probably the worst way to boil water. 

“Yodo asked after you,” he said.

Boruto was already sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for his food.

“Cool.”

“You’re not curious to know what she said?”

“Not really.”

“She asked for your number.”

Shikadai pulled the lid of the second cup to sprinkle the seasoning powder on the dry noodles. Boruto didn’t say anything. His silence made his friend ask:

“She was smelly down there or what?” 

“You’re fucking gross.”

An image flashed in Boruto’s mind. Of the glitters, he found dirtying his pillow in the morning and the feeling of her thighs around him while he moved inside her. 

His mouth could still remember the acrid taste of her perfume, all over the skin of her throat. It may have smelled good but it was not pleasant to kiss. 

He wondered if Sasuke did the same, slept occasionally with unknown girls that smelled acidulous like grapefruit. Or maybe it was boys that he fucked. Boruto imagined his naked back, the movement of his shoulder blades with the body of a stranger under him. He couldn’t picture his face, just this. 

“Then was she—” Shikadai started.

Uneasy, Boruto interrupted him:

“She was fine.”

He didn’t like to talk about that kind of stuff, not even with friends. Shikadai’s curiosity surprised him. Boruto didn’t took him for the kind to ask for details. 

“Great.”

Shikadai cast a quick glance at him.

“So?”

“What?”

“Do you want me to give her your number?”

Boruto shrugged. 

Would a day where he didn’t hesitate, arrive? Were he knew himself enough to stop shrugging his shoulders?

“Yes or no—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Following the beep, Shikadai handed the first cup noodle to Boruto, and Boruto might have stared down a little too long before taking from his hand. 

“You know who you remind me of, Boruto?” Shikadai said, out of sudden as he placed the second cup in the microwave, careful to not let the water overflow.

There was something harsh in his voice. Boruto didn’t understand where it was coming from. 

“No?”

“My grandmother. The mother of my father. She is always complaining about my dad, about her age, her health, about me. You’re cranky just like her. You don’t say it but it shows easily on your face.”

“Fuck off. You’re the one to talk.”

“You can’t wait to return to your boring town, whatever its name is and until then, you act like an ass.”

“It’s not boring.”

“You’re the one who said it was.”

Shikadai folded his arms and stared at him, keen-eyed.

“How will you even find work? The best and biggest companies are here. Do you think of that or are you studying for nothing?”

Boruto blew on his hot noodles then said,

“I’ll figure it out. There are other cities than Tokyo, you know.”

“If you don’t like this one, why would you like the others?”

Boruto stayed silent and put down his chopsticks. His sudden questions were starting to ruin his appetite. He narrowed his eyes. 

“You’re not my mother, Shikadai.”

“One day, you’ll realize I’m right.”

The sharp sound of the microwave beeping a second time accompanied Shikadai’s words and Boruto hoped the noodles would reduce him to silence.

He told Sasuke about the conversation he had with Shikadai — not the bit about Yodo because he doubted this matter would interest him but about the rest. He asked him, “What do you think?” and Sasuke answered before clamping a cigarette between his lips, “I think nothing. He is not wrong and you have the right to have your opinion.”

So here was another subject that didn’t interest him.

* * *

His father knew.

“Sasuke told me he was making you visit a bit,” he said, last time they talked on the phone between two sentences.

Boruto thought it would stay a secret just between the two of them but for Sasuke, there was nothing worth hiding. Perhaps, it was better.

“He did,” he answered. 

Sasuke was not an easy person to apprehend. Too silent. Boruto thought he was good at reading people but it came to him, like the deep sea, there were crucial things that couldn’t be seen. 

Here and there, Boruto would take a peek, afraid of what would happen if he dove further. A silver of Sasuke had been enough to swoon all of him.

Something angry existed deep within him that he tamed in some way. Not that this calm attitude he displayed most of the time was an act but his words had a curt edge to them, like an unconscious slip. It was hard to believe this man cared about anything when you crossed his chilly gaze. But sometimes he would smile and glance a certain way and by that, Boruto knew it wasn’t all it was. 

For every sharp thing about him, there was something tender.

“I wasn’t the nicest kid,” Sasuke told him, while they drove far from Tokyo, speaking of one thing and another. 

It was something new. Lately, the drive wasn’t reduced to the city anymore. Boruto suspected Sasuke liked to drive for the sake of driving. And maybe that was what he did alone, even without Boruto, take a drive the farthest away, far from the traffic where the roads were narrow. 

They stopped at the station essence. With curiosity, the smell of gasoline in the air, Boruto opened the small glove compartment. He found inside nothing but a black leather case. Heavy, so not empty. 

“You never wear them,” he said.

Through the window, Sasuke peered at the black sunglasses Boruto was now holding in his hand. 

“I forgot they were here.”

Boruto lowered the sun visor and stared at himself in the mirror. He carefully put on the sunglasses like he would put a mask. 

“What do you think?” 

“Doesn’t look bad,” answered Sasuke after a look. 

Boruto grinned. 

“Keep them,” Sasuke told him. “They suit you better.”

With a shake of the head, Boruto took them off and put them back at their place. 

“Another time maybe, when there is more sun.”

Sasuke had this car, as long as Boruto remembered. The Corvette Stringray followed him each time he’d visited his family, parked in the driveway, shiny and black, without a speck of dust on it.

Younger, while sitting in the waiting room of his dentist, Boruto flipped through the page of a car magazine and stumbled into a copy of these old advertisements made yellow by time.

On the coated paper, this fancy couple was having a picnic on the grass. The woman was wearing a green pencil dress and was looking intensely in the eyes of her husband. His face was fully hidden. A ’66 Corvette convertible was parked behind them. A small text was accompanying the picture.

_Then, away. Outside the city, unwinds a road as long as the day ahead. A day just for them. In the Chevrolet built just for two._

Boruto had ripped the advert from the magazine and kept the paper folded in two, hidden inside his bag. 

As he sat inside this car, years after, he liked to replay these words. They made him feel lucky. 

In winter, the sun took longer to disappear to let the darkness lay over the road. The outward path had no end. Something should happen. It was night outside and they weren’t back yet. Boruto was oddly hopeful, looking forward to something he ignored. He didn’t recognize their surrounding. There was nothing around, only plains and fields. 

He always despised any road back and the depressing feeling that accompanied them as the world looked dimmer and toned down. No matter the destination, the same sensation followed. 

“Sometimes I just want to ride a train until I reach the end of a line and take another train and then another and then another,” he told Sasuke between two bites of the egg sandwich he bought earlier at the service station. 

“You’ll run in circles. You won’t go very far.”

Boruto ignored his answer and turned down the music, playing in the car. 

“You never wanted to just— I don’t know, drive, never take a turn, just drive straight ahead and see what happens?”

“I doubt a straight road like that exists,” Sasuke answered. 

“I’m sure it does. Only the sea would stop us.”

“ _Us_?”

Like caught, Boruto opened his mouth then closed it. Sasuke shifted gears then asked,

“Is it what you hope to find, at the end? Another sea?”

If Boruto said, yes, would Sasuke drive them to some shore? Probably. 

“Not really. I’ve seen enough of it. I don’t care about the destination.”

“Only the road matters?”

“Basically. But If I ever do something like that, my starting point won’t be an island, of course. Naukan should be a good start.”

“Naukan?” Sasuke repeated. 

Boruto nodded. 

“Yeah, it’s a village in Russia, the easternmost place of Asia, and Europe too if we’re logical, but the village was abandoned during the fifties.”

“I’ve never heard of it. How do you know that?” Sasuke asked.

“Wikipedia,” Boruto admitted. “Anyway, even if the village is empty, the roads are still there.”

“You don’t fear the cold?” Sasuke asked. 

“Not really and it’s not like it snows there all the time. It’s not Siberia.”

“You checked the weather?”

“I did.”

“So let’s say I say _yes_ we obtain magically a visa in an hour, buy plane tickets, rent a car and go to this abandoned Russian village, now. You would do it?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And let’s say, we’re here, we start driving and then after a few hours, we are forced to take a turn because that’s simply how the road is. It doesn’t go all the way straight. What do you do? Do you cheat and take the turn or would it be the end of our trip?”

“I’ll start again from another point then,” Boruto said.

“I see. What about your classes and my work?”

“It would only be for two or three weeks, who cares,” Boruto answered quickly in an offhanded way. 

Silent, Sasuke caught his stare through the rearview mirror as if he was giving some thoughts to Boruto’s answer.

“You know what I think?”

“No?”

“It awfully sounds like escaping or running away, Boruto.”

“I took you for more courageous than that, Sasuke-San.”

Sasuke smiled faintly before his eyes were back on the road.

“You’re so young,” he said.

His words were a cold shower. They sounded utterly brutal in his mouth and killed any enthusiasm Boruto had. He wanted to contest but what they were to contest? 

Outside the scenery slowly turned miserable and muted. Boruto started to recognize the different places and gloomy roads they passed. He felt his throat clogged up. 

“So we’re going back to Tokyo.”

It wasn’t a question but Sasuke took it for one. 

“Of course, we’re going back to Tokyo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back with a short story. I hope you enjoyed the first part.
> 
> A big thanks to darpetalz who proofread the story!


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, here is the second and last part of this short fic. I hope you will all appreciate it! Thanks again to Darkpetalz for proofreading this fic.

_Part II_

* * *

Saturday, early in the evening, they went to the same bar. It was packed, compared to the first time, but Boruto appreciated the chatter around them. The more noisy the place was, the more isolated he felt with Sasuke. There was always a surprising intimacy that accompanied a crowd. He imagined this place empty with no one but them and perhaps the old couple with their Pomeranian dog in the back, beside the window. Their voices would reverberate with the empty quietness, like in the middle of an open field. But then they would be seen too easily. Similar to walls, the crowd had the power of hiding them. 

He had taken a seat across Sasuke, who found a table before he came. Boruto’s hooded black parka was hung on the back of his chair. 

A waitress arrived. Sasuke ordered a cup of black coffee and a glass of iced water. When it was his turn to order, Boruto hesitated. He would have wanted to answer a casual, the same, but instead, he said, “A coke with ice cubes.”

He wished he liked coffee. In his eyes, it made young people look wiser. He would drink coffee occasionally with a lot of sugar after a sleepless night spent studying, more to keep him awake than for the taste. No matter what, he couldn’t get accustomed to it. 

The waitress nodded and left them. 

“I hope you don’t mind, Sasuke-San,” Boruto told Sasuke. 

He hauled his messenger bag to his lap and took a blue plastic folder, and a pencil out of it. 

“I have to finish this before tomorrow, sorry.”

As he worked, he could feel the dark eyes watching him. Boruto had to reread the formulas a few times. His ears burned. He swallowed and started over. After a few minutes of silence, Sasuke asked quietly, 

“What do you study?”

Boruto looked up with surprise. 

“You don’t know?”

“You never mentioned it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Maybe, he was right. Boruto smiled to himself. He held his exercise sheet straight in the air to show it to Sasuke. The waitress arrived to give them their order. She poured his coke in the ice-filled glass then left. Sasuke drew up his brows. 

“Mathematics?”

“Mathematics, yes.”

Perhaps, that was what Boruto apprehended the best, linear algebra and calculus.

The surprise on Sasuke’s face pleased him. He knew he wasn’t someone easy to surprise. 

“I didn’t take you for a math lover.”

“What did you think I was studying?”

“Not mathematics,” Sasuke said.

“Well, I am.”

Boruto started scribbling again. 

“Are you good at it?” 

It was a difficult question, Boruto found. 

“I guess. That’s what the teachers often say, at least.” 

“Do you like it?”

“I do.”

“Why?” Sasuke questioned, his arms crossed. 

“I just do. It’s a matter of taste.”

Sasuke shook his head and sipped his coffee.

“No, there is always a reason to justify our liking,” Sasuke said.

“Huh, it’s not easy to explain.”

”Just try.”

Boruto waited some time before answering again. He looked down at the wedge of lime floating inside his glass. 

“Well, first... I like how everything unfolds and the feeling when you finally solve a problem and everything starts to click into place. Then you understand how much it makes sense. Sometimes you have to challenge yourself and try different paths with more unconventional formulas for it to work. It’s not art but it can be pretty creative—”

He stopped himself with a frown and then shook his head. 

“No, you know what? It can be considered somewhat an art.”

Sasuke wore a puzzled face, listening in silence. Boruto didn’t know if he understood anything he said. 

“You really like it.”

In his mouth, it sounded like he came to a realization. Boruto felt strangely exposed. A flush spread over his face. He wanted to refute him and tell him this love was casual and moderate but it was difficult to fake aloofness. He rubbed his neck. The ice cubes in his coke had melted a bit. 

“Well, yeah. It’s amazing, you know.”

Sasuke went on staring at him with odd scrutiny.

“I always preferred history,” he told Boruto, at last.

“History, huh? It suits you.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, you seem to like old things,” Boruto explained. “Like your car.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

Boruto thought he saw a smile but maybe he was flattering himself and that was just what he hoped to see. They ordered dinner once Boruto was done. 

It started to rain while they stepped out of the bar. The car was parked a few streets away. Boruto had an umbrella and Sasuke didn’t, he took refuge under his. Walking close, the unique smell of his skin came faintly. What would happen if he kissed Sasuke right now before they reached the street corner? 

He wouldn’t say anything, just stop his walk, grab his shoulder and press his mouth to his. 

By the time Sasuke started to drive, it was pouring. He turned on the wipers.

“Where are we going?” Boruto asked.

He drew a circle inside another circle on the foggy window, streaked with water drops. 

“Well, I’m taking you home.”

“Already?”

Sasuke looked at his watch. 

“It’s late.”

It’s late, it was a sentence Boruto came to hate. Sasuke would throw it at him without care. It was hard to contest. Yes, indeed it was late.

Boruto counted each red light. Only four this time.

They arrived at the same street, the same broken streetlight and darkness. Boruto didn’t get out. He had an awful feeling of déjà-vu. Of him and Sasuke in the same exact same clothes, a year or two in the future living this over and over, mired because of his refrain. Sasuke, behind the wheel, would drop him at home. Boruto would thank him nicely. Sasuke wouldn’t answer. Boruto would stare after this old car driving away before he entered his building. He would lie inside his bed. Desire would be there again tearing his guts and he would do nothing about it. Maybe next time, he would think. 

And each of these instants would chip away at him. 

“What’s wrong?” Sasuke asked. 

“I feel I’ve already lived this exact same moment,” Boruto admitted.

“It’s not surprising.”

“No, it’s not.”

That was all he said before he unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned forward. It was barely a kiss, faint and empty. Just a small caress from his lips to Sasuke’s lips.

Afterwards, Sasuke stared at him, very quiet. He didn’t seem surprised or troubled. It was his usual distant expression. The engine was still turned on, filling the silence of the car. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, at last.

What did you expect, driving me around every week, Boruto wanted to scream at him. 

He only nodded.

“Sorry. I didn’t think.”

“Boruto—”

“Thank you for tonight,” Boruto interrupted. 

Then he opened the door and stepped out into the street. 

He heard Sasuke call his name again but he didn’t look back. 

For the first time, he didn’t wait for the Corvette to drive away before entering his building. 

* * *

There was no point in trying to understand how it happened. It had no real beginning. No moment truly mattered more than another. It was a cluster of mundane dinners and warm evenings spent in the garden when the weather allowed it, often accompanied by the taste of sour lemonade. Sasuke never liked it sweet. 

Before moving out, Boruto had disliked as much as he had loved Sasuke’s visits. 

Disliked because to Sasuke, he was utterly invisible, whether he spoke or move. Sasuke was not interested in giving Boruto anything.

As if his presence, his body, was lacking enough substance to be seen. What was needed to be seen? Boruto ignored the answer. It wasn’t his fault anyway, he had told himself. 

Once, perhaps at sixteen, thinking he wouldn’t be able to bear it further, he had taken his bike and left the house in a hurry when he spotted the Corvette from his window. Maybe it would be better if he stayed away. He wouldn’t have to face this indifference. Studiously ignore him in return, he had thought.

His mother scolded him when he returned home past midnight. I had to see friends, he had said which wasn’t entirely a lie. 

The driveway had been empty. Sasuke was already gone. He would visit again only three months later and Boruto would loathe himself the whole time for missing the few hours he could have spent with him. His total lack of interest was still preferable to his absence. 

Long before this, there was a summer day, full of sunlight, and Boruto may have been already fully smitten, without even realizing it at the time. Sasuke’s arrival in their life was still recent. The sun had set and after dinner, they all settled in the garden. 

His father had disappeared inside the house to get a watermelon from the kitchen, his mother went after him. Himawari was having a sleepover, elsewhere, at a friend’s house.

During this rare minute, Sasuke was left alone with him. Boruto remembered how his face and forearms had taken some colours after driving for hours under the glare of the sun. He could remember his linen shirt too, white, contrasting with his tanned skin. 

While putting back his glass on the table, Boruto tipped over a bowl full of pistachio. They spilt all on the grass. 

He crouched on the ground to pick them up, one by one. 

The first thing Boruto saw was his hands. They were a mirror of his, moving in the grass to pick up the nuts. Boruto hadn’t memorized their shape yet at the time, but he recognized instantly the brown leather strap of his watch. He didn’t have to look up. 

Without a word, Sasuke had gotten up to help him. It was the nicest thing anyone ever did to him, Boruto felt at the time. 

“Thank you,” he said.

His own voice had sounded foreign, unlike his own. He had wanted to say something else, now that he was visible to these eyes. They could start some conversation which would be the start of something. 

Nothing pertinent would come to him. His head was stuffed with things that didn’t matter.

Did you know sharks are older than trees on Earth? he could have said. He read this anecdote somewhere and it had stuck with him and maybe—

Before he knew it, all the pistachio have been gathered back inside the bowl. They have been his red lights before he moved to Tokyo and cared about red lights. 

Sasuke didn’t say anything. He returned to his seat and let Boruto threw the nuts in the trash. His mother and father returned just after. 

Sasuke probably didn’t remember any of that.

* * *

The following Saturday, after the kiss, an impulse made Boruto wake early in the morning. It was still a pale dark outside. 

At eight-thirty, he finished packing his things. He bought a ticket online and took a shower before calling his mother. At nine, skipping breakfast, he left his apartment in the Koenji district for Tokyo Station. He had no pets or plants to worry about. 

On the bullet train, the full sea was in view with low clouds in the sky. 

He arrived a bit after noon. The female voice on the station speakers resonated in the empty hall announcing the soon departure of a train. His limbs were stiff and cold from sitting too long. 

His father was waiting for him inside the station, beside the vending machine. He ruffled his hair and took his travel bag from his hand. 

“Look at you,” he said and Boruto didn’t really understand what he meant by that but he smiled anyway.   
  


They took the car. Bathed in a perpetual languor, the streets were as silent as he remembered them. The voice of the radio personality faded, giving way to a song.

The Uzumaki family had lived since forever in this small town perched high on the mountainside, and autumn made it feel even more vacant. He had hated his town before leaving it. His dream for years had been to escape it and now he was running back at each occasion. Maybe, Shikadai was right. 

“We’re home,” his father announced, not long after.

It was their stop. He pulled out and Boruto turned his gaze. He saw the house and the garden surrounding it. 

Someone shouted “Mom!”. Himawari flew her arms around him as soon as he left the car, wearing a coat on top of her pajamas and winter boots. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked with her high pitched voice.

“Surprise!”

Boruto passed an arm around her shoulders and followed her inside the house.

There were a few small differences in the living room. New plant pots and curtains, he noticed. They also bought a new television. But his room stayed unchanged.

“So what new things have you seen since last time?” Himawari asked during dinner.

All eyes on the table turned to him. 

Dad’s best friend and mistakes, Boruto thought. He tried his best to smile. 

“All kind of cool stuff,” he said.

They waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t have anything else to say. 

“Are you feeling unwell?” his mother asked with a frown when Boruto disappeared early upstairs not long after. His mom sat down on the edge of the bed. Her palm touched his forehead and the metal of her wedding ring was cool against his skin. 

“You’re not sick.”

He shook his head. 

“Just tired, mom.”

She touched her fingers to his cheek and smiled. He swallowed. 

He always thought she had the most special grey eyes. So pale, like cold water, you could think them white. 

Your mother can see everything. Never lie to her, his father often said. He wondered what she was seeing right now. Probably nothing but her son, exhausted after the entire morning spent travelling. 

She couldn’t see under his skin where the chest was. 

“Can you turn off the light, please?” he asked before she closed the door. 

She did so without a word.

His bed didn’t feel like his own anymore. He lost the habit of sleeping in it. In the dark, he pressed his face to his pillow. Later, the voices in the house faded as all the lights were turned off. From his closed window, he heard the distant sound of a car driving in the night. Probably, a night worker leaving for work. 

That night, laying inside his bed, he dreamt of red.

* * *

That morning while Boruto was still laying in his bed, Himawari joined him in his room. She sat on his desk chair.

“Did you ask him?” she whispered. 

Boruto glanced at her face. 

“Who?”

“Sasuke-San.”

“Ask him what?”

“Why he wasn’t here before?”

She approached the thing like they were kids solving a quest. They made a big mystery out of this man to fight boredom. If they had asked their father, the whole game would have lost its purpose. Boruto knew he had been like her, not long ago.

He sighed and turned on his back. 

“It’s not an easy question to ask, Hima.”

“You’re not curious?”

Boruto kept staring at the ceiling. 

“It’s not really my business.”

Himawari frowned at his answer. 

“You don’t know him enough,” she concluded.

“I don’t care anymore, to tell you the truth.”

She looked at him for a long time with narrow eyes then said.

“You’ve changed.”

In her voice, there was no judgment, it was a simple observation. 

Her eyes were blue, just like their father and himself, but sometimes Boruto wondered if his sister inherited their mother’s sight.

“You’re already leaving tonight?”

“Yeah. I have classes tomorrow morning.”

She sighed.

“It’s like you never came.”

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

November started with a tiring and soggy frenzy. His mid exams for the fall term were about to start very soon. Boruto had less time for everything. His whole days were spent studying and tasks like eating and bathing were only here to give him occasional breaks. He found the library to be a waste of time and preferred to study at home.

On a late afternoon, when at the university, Boruto called Sasuke. They kept seeing each other and whatever happened that Saturday night inside the car was not mentioned. It was left forgotten in October. 

Boruto asked him if he wanted to do something during the evening. Through intense studying the days before, he allowed himself a free Thursday night. 

“I can’t.”

Sasuke’s tone was wary. Boruto asked him if he was sick, he answered no. 

Boruto didn’t ask if tomorrow would do because he had the feeling, it wouldn’t do either. Usually, people proposed other days and hours, something like “Why not Sunday, instead?” Sasuke said none of that. He stayed silent, waiting for Boruto to hang up. He wouldn’t bridge the gap. It wasn’t the “the evening” he was refusing but the “do something”. 

Maybe, Sasuke simply grew tired of doling out his company with him. 

Someone behind shouted his name. Boruto didn’t look. 

“My class is about to start. Take care.”

“You too, Boruto.”

* * *

In the end, Boruto passed his mid exams easily. Shikadai called him up. He wanted to celebrate it. He said _celebrate_ but there were no differences with what they usually did a Friday night. He pulled him off to this same club and Boruto recognized the same people. He had almost hoped for the bouncer to see through their lies and refuse them the entrance. He didn’t even hide the ID picture that looked nothing like him with his thumb this time but the bouncer seemed half-blind. 

Boruto didn’t leave his seat in the back, sipping his drink and watching his phone. Shikadai said something to him that he didn’t get. 

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

“Why?”

“You barely said a word since we arrived. Did you screw up your exams?”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Boruto shook his head and put his phone in his bag.

“Nothing, man. I’m fine.”

Shikadai watched him closely. 

“You’re not in a good mood,” he said. “I told you, you’re easy to read.”

“Maybe I ate something I shouldn’t.”

Boruto put his arms on the table and pressed his face against them. Two girls walked close to their table. Shikadai didn’t spare them a glance.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Shikadai?” Boruto asked.

“If I had you would know.”

“I don’t know. I think you’re the kind to keep it a secret and after years, say something like 'I’m getting married in a week. You wanna come over?’”

Shikadai laughed. 

“You think we’ll still be friends in years?”

His words surprised Boruto. 

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I thought you wanted to move away as soon as you can.”

Boruto shifted on his seat, silent. After some hesitation, Shikadai admitted:

“There is someone but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just—“

Boruto grinned.

“A crush?”

“Yeah, I guess you can call it like that.”

“Who?”

Shikadai started to trace slowly the neck of his beer bottle with his fingertip. 

“I’m not sure you want to know.”

“Do I know her?” 

“Yeah, you do,” Shikadai answered with a sigh. 

The smile on Boruto’s face widened.

“Does she share classes with us?”

“No.”

“She has a different speciality then.”

“No,” Shikadai said again. 

With a frown, Boruto echoed, 

“No?”

Shikadai didn’t say anything. Boruto raised his face. They stared at each other and Boruto thought he would chicken out and the name wouldn’t leave him but he let it out:

“Yodo.”

Perhaps it would have been better if he didn’t.

“Yodo like—?”

“Yes.”

Boruto’s smile disappeared instantly. He paled. The world blurred an instant and lost focus. 

The image of Shikadai pressed on a bench at his side, while they were waiting for an Uber, came back to him. Yodo was casually sitting on his lap, laughing in his ear. His arm was around her waist. Boruto’s Uber arrived first. She stepped inside the car. 

He only waved goodbye at Shikadai, before joining her. He tried to remember his eyes, his face, a sign that could have given his feelings away but nothing would come to him. Shikadai didn’t stop him, not with words, not with anything. He just waved back. 

His attitude toward Boruto didn’t change, afterwards, either. 

“Shikadai—“

“It’s fine,” Shikadai cut him. “You didn’t know. She didn’t either.”

“Still.”

Uneasy, Boruto thought over for a moment.

“She doesn’t know, you’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure of that.”

“You’ve known her for a while, right?”

Shikadai nodded calmly. He seemed strangely unfazed by all of this. His face showed no fluster. You would expect someone admitting such things to be more embarrassed but his expression stayed detached. 

“Since we’re kids.”

“And you never told her anything?”

“Why would I?”

“What do you mean?” Boruto asked.

He took a sip of beer and waited for an answer but it didn’t come. 

“You don’t think she loves you back?” 

With the song blasting from the speakers nearby, Boruto could hardly hear his answer. Shikadai had to repeat himself. 

“I don’t know.”

“And you don’t want to know?”

“Not really. It’s better this way. I got used to it. It would be troublesome, otherwise.”

An unsettling feeling nagged at Boruto. Keeping a secret for too long could be dangerous. It was the easiest way to turn it into a part of yourself. Like a seed, if you buried it deep in the ground, the secret would still find a way to sprout out and change your core little by little. No matter how hard the ground was, it would happen. Boruto knew it too well. 

“So you’re never going to tell her?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“That sucks.”

“What about you?” Shikadai questioned, peering into his eyes. 

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. Do you have anyone?”

Boruto smiled a bit. He looked down at his lap.

“No. I’m in the same boat as you.”

“You want to talk about it?”

With a shake of the head, Boruto answered softly,

“No. Better not.”

They both left the club, earlier than intended around midnight. “See you Monday,” Shikadai had said before running away, to try to catch the last subway. 

Sitting on a bench, Boruto waited in a street nearby. Sasuke and his car didn’t take long to arrive. Boruto had feared he wouldn’t answer his text but he did with a simple:

_Ok._

He stayed silent as he drove. Perhaps, Boruto should have taken an Uber. He wondered if he woke him up.

“You’re taking me home?”

“Yes.”

A deep sigh left Boruto. He sank inside the seat.

“Where do you want to go at his hour?” Sasuke asked.

His face stayed blank but Boruto knew him enough now to perceive the subtle change in his voice, the annoyance. He rolled the drawstring hanging from his parka around his index. 

“I don’t know. It’s just—I’m not really tired, you know.”

“Then give me a place.”

His answer almost made Boruto laugh. As if he cared about _where_. He wanted Sasuke, his skin and to embrace him, right now inside this car. They wouldn’t have to waste more time, find an empty street — at this hour it shouldn’t be hard— and park. The inside of the car was small but they could make it work, him on Sasuke’s lap, embracing his neck and yielding to him. 

He would never admit it out loud and Sasuke should never know. If he did, he would probably open the door, as if defiled and ask him to leave the car immediately, even if they were in the middle of the expressway. 

“I don’t know what to do with you, Boruto,” Sasuke said. 

“Do with me?” Boruto repeated slowly to grasp the full meaning of the words.

Sasuke spoke of him as you would speak of a mould invasion in your house — a problem that called for immediate attention. 

“I don’t understand—”

“Yes, you do,” Sasuke replied, looking straight ahead. 

His face was set. Boruto didn’t reply. He let his head rest against the foggy window. Something was soothing about the cold touch of it.

Boruto didn’t remember closing his eyes and dozing off. It happened too fast. Sasuke woke him up once they arrived. He didn’t recognize the street or the place. In his haze, with bleary eyes, he could see water afar. 

“Where are we?”

“I don’t really know,” answered Sasuke. “I just pulled up. Shibaura probably.”

“Oh.”

Blessing the darkness that hid his face and any sense of awkwardness, Boruto said,

“Let’s go for a walk then.”

Sasuke didn’t answer straight away. His eyes roamed over Boruto’s face for what seemed a very long time. And now, Boruto hoped for a bit of light, this way he could read Sasuke better and prepare himself for a refusal. 

Sasuke’s hands left the wheel. The car was turned off.

“Why not.”

At this hour, there was not a lot of people. Beside him, Sasuke was smoking and looking at the water below them, without a word, his elbows resting on the rail. Their bodies were facing opposing directions.

“Do you want to feed the fish?” Boruto joked.

He jammed his hands into his pockets. The air was cold and crisp.

“No,” Sasuke answered curtly. “I doubt there are fishes here.”

“It was a joke.”

“I know.”

A burst of wind made the skirts of Sasuke’s overcoat flutter. Boruto looked at his profile. Smoke, white in the dark, twirled through his pursed lips. 

“Last week, why—”

As if he anticipated his question, Sasuke answered before he could finish,

“Work was awful. I had too many things to finish.”

Boruto recognized the weariness shadowing his face.

“You don’t like your job?”

“I do actually,” Sasuke answered. “It could be worse.”

For a while, it was silent.

“I used to hate it for years,” he said. “There was a month when I worked more than ninety hours of overtime. One day, my alarm rung at four am, like it always did, and I got sick of it. I knew I had no intention of living the rest of my life this way. I took a job at a new company, five years ago and it eventually got better.”

“Five years ago?” Boruto repeated.

Five years ago was when he met Sasuke.

“Yes.”

Was it the answer to this stupid mystery? 

Boruto wanted to tell him about this whole thing. How he and his sister came up with the worst assumptions. Prison. Gang. Murder. But he said nothing of that. 

“You should have left,” he added only.

Finally, Sasuke lifted his eyes to meet his. 

“To go where?”

“I don’t know. Just somewhere else. Start a new life away.”

Something in his words made Sasuke smile in such a bitter way. An emotion showed on his face that Boruto couldn’t quite name. Sasuke exhaled smoke in the air and glared at him. 

“ _Just somewhere else_ ,” he echoed. “Tell me, do you hate it here so much, Boruto?”

The wind struck Boruto hard across the face. At this instant, he understood something crucial about Sasuke. About his own reckless and callow words. And his distaste for his time here and anything related to the city.

“I used to but— No. It’s not so bad,” Boruto blurted out. “I don’t even want to leave anymore.”

He had this idea that this city was nothing but a short period of his life. Once he finished his studies, he would flee first thing first and go back to his family. Along the way, he learned there was no point going back, once he left. There was nothing worth waiting for him.

“Are you less bored?” Sasuke asked.

His gaze darted back to the water. Boruto was jealous of it. Why the water and not him? 

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t mind being bored to tell you the truth, on the contrary. It means there is nothing to worry about.”

Sasuke only nodded and crushed what was left of his cigarette under his shoe. 

“You’re right.”

A deep silence lay steadily around them again. Sasuke turned side-on and stretched out his hand to touch his face. Just like that. 

His fingers caressed the long deep scar running along Boruto’s right eyelid and cutting his eyebrow. 

In the darkness, Sasuke’s face was focused, not with worry or preoccupation but as if he was reading a book and thinking very hard. It was this intense expression, Boruto had first seen when he asked him some time ago, Why are you doing this?

Could he feel how different the skin was below the eye? 

“What happened?”

Boruto could only stare back and he didn’t understand completely his question.

“You only notice the scar, now?”

“Of course not. What happened?” Sasuke repeated, his gaze persistent. 

He was closer now.

“Something idiotic,” Boruto answered drily. 

He felt he was being played like a kite in the wind. He could hardly stand it. He was thirteen again with nothing but a clumsy inarticulate tongue, unable to form a coherent thought. Stop doing this, he wanted to tell Sasuke before running away.

“Hm?

“Nothing. Believe me. Why do you care?”

“Why the mystery?”

“I didn’t take you for someone curious, Sasuke-San.”

“If you don’t want to say then—“

“I wanted to grab a snack when I was a kid,” Boruto interrupted. “I went to the kitchen. The chips were too high. The chair under my feet slid, I grabbed the door instinctively, the cabinet, and what was inside fell on me. That’s it. I had the scar since that night.”

Sasuke smiled a bit. Perhaps, he found the story amusing, or perhaps he didn’t really expect Boruto to answer him. The palm moved to his cheek, calloused and warm. Boruto leaned into it. 

“See. There is nothing mysterious about it.”

His pulse spurred. The ground under his feet felt everything but solid as if he was sliding on gravel and Sasuke was not stopping. He was staring at his mouth now. 

“No, indeed,” Sasuke said with a low voice, his thumb pressing his bottom lip. “Nothing mysterious.”

“So?” Boruto asked.

He exhaled a sharp breath.

“Hm?”

“Do you know now?”

“Know what?”

“What to do with me.”

There was no answer, no air breathed between them. 

Sasuke leaned. His warm mouth found his own. Boruto closed his eyes shut. One of his hands went up around Sasuke’s neck and he returned his kiss bit by bit.

Boruto thought of the boy, he was once, so long ago. How he wanted him to know this, that distant man who crossed their door, who he always yearned for, would lean and kiss him kindly in Tokyo, in the middle of the night, the thirteenth day of November, a Friday. 

‘No, he doesn’t really hate you,’ he would tell him. ‘Don’t trust his eyes, they will confound you.’

Sasuke kissed the same way he drove on the expressway at night, with a sinuous easiness. He held Boruto’s face between his hands and lifted it.

“You’re trembling,” Sasuke breathed into the space between them. 

“I’m sorry,” Boruto answered, keeping his eyes close. “I know—“

Boruto gripped at Sasuke and pulled him tighter, kissing him as deep as he could.

Sasuke sighed and Boruto understood in this, he wasn’t the only one starving.

After pulling himself away, Sasuke grasped his wrist gently. His thumb brushed his pulse back and forth. 

“Let’s go,” he said. 

“You’re taking me home?” Boruto asked. 

He touched his fingers to his lips distractedly with his other hand. Sasuke shook his head. He didn’t let go of him.

“No.”

Boruto had sex a few times before. All women. A high school girlfriend in the past, and girls with glitters on their eyes here. He didn’t regret any of them. He liked and desired them enough. 

Yet a part of him would have wished Sasuke to be the first who laid a hand on him. 

He was the one who awakened this warmth inside him when Boruto barely knew what the word desire meant, and he could have been the one who fulfilled it too for the first time. 

Perhaps that was why he never slept with men. It was easier to ignore whatever he felt for Sasuke with people very different from him. 

Even after wanting it for such a long time, he knew he wasn’t ready, destined to be always afraid. This light fear stayed on his mind. He dreaded it as much he wanted it because it was him. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t work, perhaps Sasuke wouldn’t want him as much as he did. And it would be the end of something that barely started.

Sasuke, calm as ever, drove them to this residential complex with a large park facing it. In the car, it had been utterly quiet and never has a drive seemed so long.

“You live here,” Boruto said only. 

“Yes.”

Boruto got a blurred idea of what the inside of the apartment looked like. It was too dark. He was too dizzy.

Are you hungry, asked Sasuke. Boruto shook his head.

Thirsty? Boruto shook his head again, in silence. He took off his parka and left it on the couch with his bag. Then Sasuke was pulling him, inside his room. His intentions were clear.

The light was dim, enough to see, but Boruto was aware of nothing but him. The walls may have been white or yellow and a bureau may have been placed there. He would memorize this room after, in the morning. 

Sasuke reached for him and grabbed his face again. His room carried the odour of him or his cologne, of his skin. It made Boruto’s head spin. He closed his eyes. 

Between kisses, their bodies rubbed against each other. His mouth opened upon Sasuke’s. Sasuke peeled off Boruto’s clothes. He dumped them on the ground. His jacket. His sweatshirt. His shirt. His pants. And watching them made Boruto realize how naked he was, left only in his underwear. He shivered and asked, breathless, 

“You too.”

He pulled on Sasuke’s sweater and made him raise his arms. Their clothes tangled on the ground. His skin was hot. His chest was firm. Boruto pressed his mouth to it. To the hollow between his nipples and his ribs. This was his for the night, this supple assemblage made of white flesh and hard muscles. 

Sasuke said his name, no more than a whisper but his voice aroused within Boruto a craving, sensuous, and deep. His loins swelled. A keen feeling pulsed through him. 

Sasuke didn’t ask anything and Boruto didn’t want him to. He despised the _Have You—?_ questions to which he would have to answer, No, I haven’t. I never sucked anyone off but for you, I will drop to my knees in a blink.

And without words, he did. He knelt silently between his legs and loosened his belt. 

The idea of having another man’s cock in his mouth had always seemed repulsive. Boruto thought he wouldn’t be able to stand it but he still did it. Everything about it was strange and unfamiliar, the weight, the warmth, the taste.

He watched Sasuke tilt his head back, eyes closing and lashes pulsing against the line of his cheek.

Flushed to the neck, his hand rested on Boruto’s shoulder. His breath hitched. Boruto could feel his nails dig into his skin. 

Boruto didn’t take his eyes off from him and he thought, I did this to him.

He realized, he would put his mouth anywhere or his hand or anything if it meant feeling Sasuke loosen with pleasure. 

The air was cold, even in the room, they went under the bed cover. There was a thickening stillness for what was about to come and what has occurred too. Boruto liked the faint weight of his naked body on his. Sasuke watched him with half-lidded eyes. He didn’t say anything. 

His palm slid lower from Boruto’s knee to his thigh. He never looked at Boruto this way and his arousal was pressed hard against his hip. Boruto touched it. He didn’t stroke him, just caressed its length, a flutter, more for himself than to give Sasuke pleasure. It was still an unknown body, like his own and not exactly the same. He craved it.

Sasuke kissed his face, slow. He pulled down his boxer brief and before sliding his fingers between his buttocks, Boruto strutted and clutched at his upper arm. To stop him or hurry him, he didn’t know. He was sinking and Sasuke made his way into him. 

“Tell me how it feels,” Sasuke told him quietly. His lips moved to Boruto’s shoulders and Boruto kept silent. He bit his tongue and spread his legs. His face. His body burned. 

“Answer.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just—”

He fell silent and bucked his hips, eyes closed very shut. A shallow breath left him. Sasuke smiled faintly against his skin. Boruto felt it more than he saw it. There was the touch of his tongue on his chest, and strands of black hair tickling his skin like feathers at each press of the lips. Sasuke didn’t say anything else. His head went down on his body. 

Boruto rolled his head to the side. Blood buzzed in his ears. There was a mouth around his cock and slick fingers fitting inside him. Laid bare, he opened up to Sasuke with a shameless eagerness.

Boruto knew then. Somehow, Sasuke saw through the fog and learned everything already. He knew how long he had been waiting, forever, and he knew about the old advert, carefully stolen from the dentist magazine and left stashed safely, under the mattress of his bed. Pulled by some force, he may have found it when he slept in his old room months ago. And this has been what Boruto had hidden the most, wrapped deep inside himself. 

  
The room stayed swathed in an intimate silence. Boruto wanted to say things. Kill the quietness. No words would come to him. He was unable to utter a word. He clutched the pillow. 

He was losing his grip. There was nothing to keep him grounded but another body than his.

Sasuke held him tight from behind. His hands on his spine, moving Boruto, finding new ways for them. His sweat mingled with his. 

He pressed down his chest to Boruto’s back and embraced him, one arm hooked around his waist and the other stroking his torso. Boruto could feel his every breath, warm and uneven, on his shoulder and jaw. It was hot. He was sweating.   
  


“Like this?” Sasuke whispered, low and soft. 

He stopped his thrusts an instant to press down a little harder. 

Boruto twisted his neck to seek his lips. He felt like his whole body was open.

“Yes.”

He breathed the word again, very low, against Sasuke’s mouth. He said his name too, just his name, nothing else, and he didn’t tell Sasuke no one did that to him. No one ever fucked him. Perhaps he did know or maybe it was better if he stayed ignorant. It didn’t matter. 

Boruto slammed his eyes shut when too much pleasure was pushed into him.

His lips parted. Sasuke drew another sound out of him, raw and spilling from the back of his throat. The grip around him tightened, his hand raised to his jaw. He sunk into him very deep.

Boruto may have cursed or pleaded in the same breath. The pressure was choking him. He was drowning. His grasp crumbled. It was too intense, a dive crawling deep in his bones. He buried his face desperately into the mattress and Sasuke didn’t halt an instant. He followed him. 

Boruto came later between his arms. 

It was very early when he woke up. 

His body was still swathed in the intimate embrace of the hour before. This lingering feeling between his thighs was still alien and slow to wear off.

In the dark, he couldn’t really make up Sasuke’s face lying next to him, but his breath was slow and steady and his body brushing his. The sound of the clock on the shelf filled his ears. Boruto stayed unmoving, lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. 

Tonight, it happened as if his body was not his own anymore. A stranger had taken his place, he felt. Pierced through his skin and wore it to pretend to be him. Someone without restraint and who didn’t bother with doubts. It was odd to feel so sure about something as if anything noisy inside him settled and suddenly went quiet. He had wanted it and he still did with the same strength, perhaps even more than before. _This_ was something, he could be sure of. 

He pushed the cover and grabbed his boxer shorts from the ground then made his way to the kitchen to fill himself a glass of water from the faucet. 

There were no curtains on the large windows in the living room. Sasuke lived on the seventh floor, high enough to see a good side of the city and its arteries. 

No building was fully asleep here.

From left to right, Boruto reviewed each of them and tried to find one without a small square lightened up. Impossible. 

And when one light was turned off, it didn’t take long for another to be turned on, like a flicker in slow motion. 

Soon, Sasuke woke up. Boruto heard his footsteps first. 

“You’re here,” he said.

He must have thought he had left. Boruto nodded. 

In the dark, he kept staring out of the window. Sasuke placed his lips at the base of his neck, where the hair started. 

“You have a really cool view, you know.”

Sasuke nodded and his breath was still on his ear. 

The buildings, cars, or lights became distant in his mind when Sasuke took his hand after a few seconds and pulled him back to bed. 

* * *

Slowly, as days passed, Boruto came to dislike red lights again as any sane person should. They have been his allies for some time, but they were not needed anymore. 

This slight annoyance returned while he waited on his bicycle, fully stopped, for the light to turn green and even while sitting inside the Corvette. 

Winter had browned the grass. December arrived and with it, the end of his semester.

In a few days, Boruto would leave for winter break. Sasuke was planning to visit his brother too. 

“Do you want to drive the car?” Sasuke said to him, a Saturday afternoon, stuck in the traffic jam. He had accompanied Boruto while he bought some posters and frames for his room. It started to rain in the sunless sky. People, with nothing to shelter them, walked drenched with their heads down. Boruto stopped looking outside. He blinked. 

“You’re joking?” 

The silence answered him. It dawned on Boruto that Sasuke may be serious.

“You would really let me?”

“If you knew how, why not,” Sasuke answered. 

“But my license—“

“You could take another exam and update it.”

Boruto had to bite his lip to keep his cool and a smile inside. 

“I do know a bit but—We will have to find an empty road and you will have to teach me, once I’m back. Okay?”

Sasuke nodded.

“Sure,” he said. 

“Cool.”

Boruto stared at him and he felt a sudden pang of loss. 

Sasuke’s eyes met his while he adjusted the rearview mirror.

“What’s the matter?” 

“I think I’ll miss the city a bit.”

“It’s only for a short while.”

“I know but...” he trailed off.

A sight left Boruto. If he was honest I with himself, he knew now some part of him had already taken steps here, in the asphalt. He shifted into someone else. He changed, not so much but enough to realize it. Now, he owed this place too much. 

Their gaze met again and he didn’t have to finish his sentence because Sasuke said, without looking at him, as he read his thoughts,

“I’ll miss it too, Boruto.”

* * *

_The End_


End file.
